Keough

Etymology

Keough is an Irish surname associated with Gaelic forms such as Mac Keogh and related spellings. The historical sources connect it with a family of names written in several ways, including Keogh, Keough, MacKeogh, and MacKough, suggesting a common Gaelic origin rather than separate surnames. Older writers sometimes proposed different underlying Gaelic words, so the exact literal meaning is not perfectly settled from these excerpts alone.

History

The name is found in Irish usage and appears in several Anglicized spellings, especially Keogh and Keough. The 20th-century Irish surname work by Woulfe treats Keough as part of this wider cluster of forms, while American surname lists show the name in the United States by the 19th century. In modern records, Keough is much less common than Keogh but clearly belongs to the same Irish naming tradition.

Origin

Regions

Variant spellings

Fun fact

One early surname scholar even floated an animal-based explanation for Keough, showing how uncertain some 19th-century surname etymologies could be.